Parachute Trust

Tonight (actually, it's early morning now), I can write from a more sensible place than I could have last night...Last night I was so desperate from pain that I was glad I don't live on the 20th floor of a Manhattan apartment...because certainly I'd have been out ledge walking. And NO, I'm not depressed...I really am not. Well, if I am , it's a situational depression (which I always feel, doesn't count - because you have every RIGHT to want to cry.)

This morning when I opened my "Spark Mail" on Spark People.com...there was a letter from one of the "coaches"- (resident experts hired by Spark to dole out advice and help to those of us struggling to lose weight and get into shape). She expressed concern because of something I'd said in a recent blog on that site. Because I made some kind of remark with which I opened this blog also. Enclosed in the letter was the obligatory crisis hotline phone number....and the encouragement to "seek professional help" for my depression.

I appreciate that they HAVE to send out letters like this...to cover all their bases. However, if' she'd really read that blog carefully, there was a lot more hope than depression there. A lot more determination to live a healthy life than there was desire to end that life. It was a blog that said, (in essence) "This situation is horrific and it makes me feel desperate and trapped...but I REFUSE to allow it to defeat me. I refuse to lose ground that I've fought so hard to gain."

Why is it that as soon as people see things like "I feel like blowing my head off of my shoulders" that they immediately get so bent out of shape?? haha. (Ok...that question was asked with a bit of humor...so don't go freaking out on me too. I don't want any home-care psychiatrists with commitment papers in hand, knocking at my door flanked by two burly men holding restraints... Nope. Not necessary. If it DOES become necessary at any point, it will be obvious to everyone. And I'm NOT at that point.)

What point am I at?
I'm at the point of extreme fear and frustration...when I look at my life now: my current abilities (or should I say LACK of ability?)...my pain level (which is at the far side of unbelievable), my future (which is just on this side of completely hopeless), and my resources (which, apart from God, are almost nil)...my sources of support (church friends, Spark friends and...... yeah, you get the picture) And I have to ask, "God what are you DOING here?" And he is being very close- mouthed about the answer to that. Because I don't have a CLUE.

A key concept in Scripture is one that God gave to Paul when Paul begged him three times to remove some kind of "thorn in his flesh"...God told him, "My grace is sufficient for you...For my strength is perfectly exhibited through your weakness." This tendency for God to delight in hobbling us of all earthly sources of strength so that he can brilliantly exhibit his greatness, apart from any strength of our own, is rampant through Scripture.

He stripped Gideon of the majority of his army so that NO ONE could make any claim that that war was won via the size or strength of the Israelite army. And the power of God blazed through that night and Israel won a resounding.....and completely unlikely victory ...
And the man born blind was not born with this handicap based on anything of earthly reason...It was purely a "hobbling device" of God so that "God's glory might be displayed in him" and through his healing. And I'm sure there are numerous other examples...even the battle of Jericho, where the strength of the Israelite army was hopelessly pitted against the unassailable strength of the walls of that city. And God told them to merely WALK around the city, singing and praising him....so that HE, could knock those walls down to rubble, contrary to every inclination of human reason. And Paul himself, evidently dealt with some situation or physical handicap that kept him in complete reliance on the strength and grace of God to manage and to be successful in his ministry.

What do these things mean to me?

They mean that, in all likelihood, God is planning something here. He is going to use me or to use this situation in a manner that will brilliantly highlight his own glory.
Now, how does that make me feel? Does it make me angry that God should allow or cause all of this suffering in my life, simply to make himself look great? No, it really doesn't. Because God IS great. And for him to allow me the chance to show to everyone around some evidence of that magnificence, bestows on my life some kind of real significance....a significance that it WOULDN'T hold, were I merely a lawyer or a brain surgeon. Because in those cases all I'm working with are my own brains and ability. And all for my own paltry glory, which will be forgotten a month after I'm dead.

No, if I get to participate in the glory of God...then wow, I am participating in something HUGE, something MEANINGFUL, something LASTING AND ETERNAL. and my life, alone, regardless of the circumstances of blessing or trouble in which I find myself, simply does NOT hold that degree of importance on its own.

So, on the lonely, long nights like last night...when I was seriously struggling with pain much larger than myself....much larger than my own ability to endure it...how does that help me? Honestly, all of this was FAR from my thoughts last night. I was simply concerned with the effort of drawing one breath after another...and keeping myself from screaming or doing something foolish and desperate. I was NOT thinking of God's glory. Or of eternal significance. But in the morning, after having gotten about 4 hours of desperately needed sleep, the deeper questions present themselves when I look backward at a night of sheer agony. And they do matter. Because when the questions come to me, as they do (and must) to anyone living this kind of hell, "what is it all for?" "Why should I bother continuing with a life that is miserable, pointless and hopeless by any earthly standard?" Then I HAVE to find an answer. Because I will NEED that answer maybe five minutes from now when pain rocks my world...and I will be in no shape to come up with that answer then. If I did, my answer WOULD be ledge-walking or head blowing...

So what IS my answer?
It is this.
I MUST believe and do believe, that God is doing something in me, through me, and with me. And what he is doing necessitates my total weakness and helplessness and dependence on him. It may even necessitate my utter desperation. And through this disease he has got ALL of those things.
What is he doing? I don't know. He is either going to reach some people who would otherwise be unreachable, or he is going to use me as an object lesson in the heavenly, invisible realms, or maybe he will even HEAL me in some glorious manner. I don't know. But he knows. And I know him...and I have to trust him because I know him.

And this kind of trust is the kind of trust you give your parachute when you jump from an airplane. That chute will open .... IT HAS TO OPEN. Because if it doesn't, I'm dead in the water.